Jesse James rides again

Red Clay Ramblers' classic 'Diamond Studs' gets a Triangle revival

Theater producer Franklin Golden knew his revival of "Diamond Studs" was on track when the director had to tell a performer what theater's "fourth wall" is. Anyone who has ever cracked open a book on acting knows that the "fourth wall" is the imaginary one between audience and actor. And Golden is pleased to see thespian virgins on the makeshift stage in the cavernous Fearrington Barn for the first on-site rehearsal of "Diamond Studs, The Life of Jesse James -- A Saloon Musical."

"There's one thing worse than bad acting in this show, and that's good acting," he whispers as director Nick Decell coaches the cast.

"Diamond Studs" was never designed to be a fine-tuned locomotive. The vivacious bluegrass and traditional music of the Red Clay Ramblers and the Southern States Fidelity Choir, plus a keg of blind faith, fueled this little engine that could from its birth more than 30 years ago in a Chapel Hill restaurant to a critically acclaimed off-Broadway run.

No one summed it up better than eminent critic Clive Barnes.

"They act horrifically, but they play like angels auditioning for Gabriel," Barnes wrote in The New York Times when the play opened in New York in 1975. "The acting is so bad that it has to be good -- no rank amateurs can be that rank or that amateur. Such badness takes time, experience and trouble."

"Diamond Studs" was an instant hit, ran for seven months and became a staple of regional theaters across North America, as well the tourist magnet Branson, Mo. It also marked the beginning of a new genre of performance: musicians' theater. Co-creators Bland Simpson and Jim Wann went on to write or contribute to umpteen "Studs"-style shows in the following decades, from Broadway's Tony Award-winning "Fool Moon" to "Pump Boys & Dinettes," "Kudzu, a Southern Musical" and the recent off-Broadway hit "Lone Star Love, the Merry Wives of Windsor, Texas."

Musicians' theater requires little by way of acting chops because the music provides the framework and carries the story. Spoken lines merely underscore themes and bridge the songs, and the shows' light-heartedness renders such questions as "What's my motivation?" ridiculous.

The success of this approach caught the original "Diamond Studs" principals off guard, recalls Simpson, 57, who now teaches creative writing at UNC-Chapel Hill and performs with the Ramblers.

"It all went through so smoothly and well that we thought, 'Oh, this is what you do. We can do one of these a year,' " he says. "We found out we were a little wrong on that kind of timetable."

Bringing it home

After "Diamond Studs" closed in New York, it returned to its birthplace, the old Ranch House restaurant on Airport Road, for a three-week run. As far as Simpson and others can recall, nobody else around here has produced it.

It takes a fair amount of gumption to bring the musical home for many of the people who invented it to see. Golden has gumption -- plus experience.

Golden, 30, has studied, performed and produced musicals since his days as a history and English major at UNC-Chapel Hill. Mojo Productions, his Chapel Hill-based company, staged the world premiere of "Good Ol' Girls," UNC-CH professor Paul Ferguson's musical adaptation of Lee Smith's and Jill McCorkle's stories. Mojo also mounted Wann's "Pump Boys & Dinettes" and "King Mackerel & The Blues Are Running: Songs and Stories of the Carolina Coast" by Wann, Simpson, Don Dixon and J.L. Mills. And Mojo staged "Diamond Studs" in Charlotte in 2003.

Like the original "Studs" gang, Golden trusts instinct more than theatrical wisdom. Instinct told him years ago that he should mount this show in its birthplace. And instinct told him to wait until he had precisely the right ingredients.